The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has continued its dominance in Bengaluru, sealing all four Lok Sabha seats in the city limits. In its best-performing year, 2019, the BJP could only win three out of four Lok Sabha seats and lost one (Bengaluru Rural) to Congress. However, in 2024, the saffron party played its cards right in gaining Bengaluru Rural from Congress strongman DK Suresh.
Even in 2023 assembly elections where the Congress party has won but a bumper majority across the state, BJP proved its strength in Bengaluru by winning majority of the assembly seats in Bengaluru.
Bengaluru South
The Congress this time expected a close fight in BJP’s bastion, Bengaluru South, where the grand old party fielded former MLA Soumya Reddy to take on the sitting BJP MP Tejasvi Surya. However, the numbers do not suggest a close fight but a one sided one. Tejasvi Surya won for the second time from Bengaluru South with a majority of 2,77,083 votes. Though the majority has fallen short for Surya compared to his 2019 (3.3 lakhs) victory, the pleasant part of Bengaluru remained with the saffron party.
Bengaluru North
Bengaluru North is the third largest Lok Sabha seat in the country, with more than 30 lakh voters in its pockets. Former Karnataka CM and BJP leader Sadananda Gowda won this seat in 2019, and this time, the BJP replaced him with a non-local face, Shobha Karandlaje. Congress fielded Rajeev Gowda, an economist and former IIM-Bangalore professor, to take on the BJP in Bengaluru North. Karandlaje has won this seat with a majority of 2,59,476 votes against Gowda.
Bengaluru Central
{{/usCountry}}Bengaluru North is the third largest Lok Sabha seat in the country, with more than 30 lakh voters in its pockets. Former Karnataka CM and BJP leader Sadananda Gowda won this seat in 2019, and this time, the BJP replaced him with a non-local face, Shobha Karandlaje. Congress fielded Rajeev Gowda, an economist and former IIM-Bangalore professor, to take on the BJP in Bengaluru North. Karandlaje has won this seat with a majority of 2,59,476 votes against Gowda.
Bengaluru Central
{{/usCountry}}Bengaluru Central is the only Lok Sabha seat in the tech capital where a close contest between the two national parties was observed. The initial rounds of counting have put Congress’ Mansoor Ali Khan in the front seat, leaving the sitting BJP MP PC Mohan behind. However, Mohan won the race in the end, and he registered the victory with a majority of 32,707 votes.
Bengaluru Rural
The BJP has put all its efforts into getting the voting athematic right for the Bengaluru Rural seat, which is a dominant Vokkaliga area. Congress leader DK Suresh, the brother of deputy CM DK Shivakumar, had won from this seat in 2019, and he was the lone Congress MP from Karnataka in the previous tenure. He was in the soup for making ‘separate nation’ remarks for not giving enough central funds to Karnataka.
After the BJP struck an alliance with the JDS, post assembly elections defeat, it roped former PM HD Deve Gowda’s nephew and renowned cardiologist CN Manjunath, who is also from the Vokkaliga community, to fight against another DK Suresh, another Vokkaliga face. Though the Congress expected the pull in rural pockets, BJP’s CN Manjunath won with a majority of 2,69,647 votes, which is the second-highest majority among all four Bengaluru seats.